For more than a decade, the federal government has been
demanding that companies along the Willamette River clean up their mess
in the Portland Harbor.

And no one has been more adamant about getting the feds to speed up the process than U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.).

Blumenauer has
stepped up pressure on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and
he’s demanded the Pentagon spend millions to clean up what he says is
the military’s share of pollution on the river bottom.

He’s advocating steps
that could not only bring the Superfund cleanup to an earlier end, but
save the polluting companies millions.

“I’ve
been on this notion of doing it in a cost-effective fashion for years,”
Blumenauer says. “We can’t spend a quarter-billion and not start
cleaning something up.”

But Blumenauer
rarely—if ever—publicly acknowledges the conflict of interest he has on
the Portland Harbor debate: His wife, Margaret D. Kirkpatrick, is senior
vice president and general counsel for NW Natural. The utility last
year awarded her $769,080 in total compensation—including salary,
bonuses and other benefits—and her NW Natural stock holdings are valued
at $347,000.

NW Natural owns two
polluted industrial properties along the Willamette River where it
buried tar left over from gas plants that stopped operating in 1956. The
company’s most recent filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission shows its liability for the Superfund cleanup is at least $43
million.

NW Natural, its ratepayers and shareholders—including Kirkpatrick—would benefit from a faster, cheaper cleanup.

Blumenauer says his wife’s financial stake in NW Natural has not affected his position.

“This
is something that benefits everybody,” Blumenauer says. “People can say
what they want. I’m not going to apologize for making sure it’s done in
a cost-effective fashion. What I do on this river has no effect on
Margaret’s job.”

Some observers say Blumenauer’s conflict is serious.

“It looks like he’s
carrying water for special interests benefiting his wife,” says Ken
Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, a right-leaning
ethics watchdog organization based near Washington, D.C. “That ought to
be used as a club to beat him over the head.”

Craig Holman,
government affairs lobbyist for left-wing watchdog Public Citizen,
agrees: “He cannot be expected to recuse himself from the issue, but he
should make every effort to disclose the conflict.”

For decades, the
riverbed of the Portland Harbor—a nearly 11-mile stretch of the
Willamette bordered by heavy industry—has been polluted with chemicals
that include arsenic and mercury. These toxins harm wildlife and can
make local fish poisonous to eat.

In 2000, the federal
government named the Portland Harbor a Superfund site, mandating that
the sediments at the bottom of the river be cleaned out.

NW
Natural has already spent $27 million studying and cleaning up pollution
leaked into the river from ponds where it once buried tar—including $6
million to remove a 15,000-cubic-yard tar ball from the riverbed.

NW
Natural is among the biggest of 100 Portland Harbor companies that have a
huge amount of money at stake. Depending on what level of cleanup the
EPA selects, the costs of the full harbor cleanup could range from $169
million to $1.7 billion.

Blumenauer has pushed
for faster action and for shifting costs away from the companies liable
for cleanup. He’s also sought to renew an oil and gas tax to pay for
Superfund cleanups.

In 2009, Blumenauer
gave a speech on the House floor in which he lauded NW Natural as a
company that had “stepped forward” to clean up the Portland Harbor. He
did not mention any other company nor did he tell colleagues his wife
was one of the utility’s top executives.

Blumenauer has also pressed the Pentagon to pick up more of the costs in the harbor cleanup.

“The Department of
Defense is the largest generator of Superfund sites,” Blumenauer told
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel during a June budget hearing. “I’m dealing
with one in the Willamette River…a staging area for the Navy for three
wars, and there’s serious pollution that is in part the responsibility
of the federal government.”

Blumenauer and other
members of the Oregon delegation pressured the incoming EPA
administrator, Gina McCarthy, to shift oversight of the project to the
nation’s capital.

Most Superfund sites
are overseen by regional EPA offices, but Blumenauer sought the change
after local EPA officials fined several Portland Harbor companies
(including NW Natural) $125,500 in April for dragging their feet in
studies of the river’s pollution.

“Some of this doesn’t
look great,” says Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “He should be disclosing his
wife’s financial interest in NW Natural when pushing for a settlement
that involves NW Natural paying less money. But I don’t think he’s
violated any ethics rules.”

The U.S. House ethics
rules allow members to vote on matters where they have disclosed a
financial interest, but prohibit their spouses from lobbying them.
(Blumenauer lists Kirkpatrick’s job in his annual congressional
financial disclosure form.)